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Potted Mackerel

A preserved mackerel dish seasoned with salt, cloves, allspice, and vinegar, baked in an earthen pot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Mackerel

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean the mackerel and cut them in half.

  2. Mix the salt, cloves, and allspice together.

  3. Roll each mackerel piece in the salt and spice mixture.

Bake

  1. Place the mackerel in an earthen pot and cover with vinegar.

  2. Seal the pot tightly and bake for 6 hours at 300°F (150°C).

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and rich during the long, slow bake.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the fish, helping preserve it during the long cook.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the fish and helps keep it moist in the pot.

The step that matters

Sealing the pot before baking. A tight seal traps steam and keeps the low-temperature bake moist, so the fish cooks gently and does not dry out over six hours.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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